Author: Harriet Cornell

Global Justice Academy Development Officer, Carnegie Postdoctoral Fellow in History, University of Edinburgh

Equality and the Democratic Deficit

Citizenship and Belonging, Global Justice Academy, Understanding Global Justice, Upcoming events, Urban Justice, Urbanization

This post by Global Justice Co-Director, Dr Tahl Kaminer, reports from the first Urban Justice Lab Symposium: ‘Who Saved the City?’. Follow the link at the bottom of the post to our Lecture Library to view videos from the day and to find out more about the Urban Justice Lab and what it does.

Who Saved the City

The recent exposure of a letter by David Cameron to Oxfordshire County Council (as reported in the Oxford Mail, and The Guardian), in which the PM berates the council for front-line budget cuts, generated a minor storm on social media. Less than a fortnight earlier, Annette Hastings of the University of Glasgow presented the findings of a Rowntree Foundation report, which lucidly depicted the application of cuts to front-line budgets of city councils across the UK. Her eloquent and precise presentation demonstrated vividly why the government’s cuts necessarily hit front-line spending, and particularly the poor.

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Serving women in Iraq and Syria: has UNSCR 1325 made a difference?

Citizenship and Belonging, Conflict, Gender, Iraq, Middle East, Peace, Political Settlements, Syria, Women

Rosie Ireland is a student on this year’s LLM in Human Rights at The University of Edinburgh. This is Rosie’s second report as a Global Justice Academy Student Ambassador – from the 2015 Montague Burton Lecture, which was delivered by Frances Guy on 2 November. Frances Guy is the Head of the Middle East region at Christian Aid. Rosie’s report outlines the key points made during the lecture, which was entitled ‘Serving women in Iraq and Syria: has UNSCR 1325 made a difference?’.

It is nearly the fifteenth anniversary of the UNSCR 1325; the first ever resolution aimed to enhance the role of women in peace building. Frances Guy analysed the effectiveness of the resolution in the context of Iraq and Syria in relation to four key areas: participation, protection, prevention, and relief and recovery.

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International Law and Peace Negotiations

Human rights, Peace, Political Settlements, Student Ambassadors

The Global Justice Academy has launched its Student Ambassadors programme for the 2015-16 academic year. Rosie Ireland and Siobhan Cuming are both students on the LLM in Human Rights. As GJA Student Ambassadors, they co-authored this report on a recent seminar by Phillip Kastner.

In this report we summarise the key points made by Professor Phillip Kastner (University of Western Australia) at a seminar on 9 October titled ‘The Role of International Law in the Context of Peace Negotiations.’

International Law and the Resolution of Internal Armed Conflicts

Today, internal armed conflicts are significantly more prevalent than inter-state conflicts. The resolution of internal armed conflicts is generally more complex than inter-state conflicts; involving a higher level of interdependence and giving rise to a multitude of issues.

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Pregnancy, Choice, and the Lessons of the Past

Gender, Health, Health and healthcare, Human rights, Law and Legal, Police and Policing, Punishment, USA, Women

Mikki headshotDr Michelle Brock is an Assistant Professor of History at Washington and Lee University, specialising in British History. In this second guest post for the Global Justice Academy, Mikki tackles the current controversy in the US around abortion and the politicisation and policing of women’s bodies – drawing striking parallels with early modern Europe. 

In the United States, the last decade has witnessed a growing cacophony of calls from pro-life advocates seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision to legalise a woman’s right to an abortion. Every single current Republican candidate for president, fourteen men and one woman, has declared his or her opposition to abortion in most or all cases.

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The Concept of Global Law: what is it and what are the rules?

Edinburgh, Innovative Initiative Fund, Law and Legal, Theory

A guest post from Lucas Miotto Lopes, Convenor of the Edinburgh Legal Theory Group, who received an award of £400 from the GJA Innovative Initiative Fund to host a seminar on ‘The Concept of Global Law’.

With the sponsorship of the Global Justice Academy the Edinburgh Legal Theory Group held the seminar entitled The Concept of Global Law on September 24th. Jorge Fabra, a PhD candidate at McMaster University, was the presenter and Professor Neil Walker, from the University of Edinburgh, acted as the discussant. We had the privilege of counting with a wide and diversified audience – from undergrads to staff members. Participants were keen to engage in discussion and offered both critical remarks and constructive feedback. As a result, discussion was very live, friendly and informal.

Jorge Fabra addresses the seminar group » Read more

Democracy, Violence, and Teaching: a Summer of GJA Events

Edinburgh, Engagement, Global Justice Academy, Students participate!

Mathias ThalerThis summer, the Global Justice Academy ran its first Summer School in conjunction with the School of Political Sciences, and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology. GJA Co-Director, Dr Mathias Thaler, reflects on the success of the three-day course, and plans to revise the Summer School for 2016. Dr Thaler also reports on  initial forays into establishing a ‘Democracy Lab’ at the University of Edinburgh, following the launch of his new honours course on democratic theory.

  1. Summer School on Political Violence

Summer School 1

From June 24 to 26, 2015, SPS organised a Summer School on political violence, in collaboration with the Global Justice Academy and HCA.

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The Fast-Eroding Glue of Union: Devolution and the Human Rights Act

Citizenship and Belonging, Constitutional Change, Devolution, Human rights, Human Rights Act

Director of the Global Justice Academy and Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Edinburgh, Christine Bell, first blogged on the difficulties that repeal of the Human Rights Act would pose for the UK’s devolved settlements in May 2015. This blog builds on those initial arguments, first appearing on . It has since been picked up by the UK media.

The Conservative government’s proposed repeal of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and possible withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Council of Europe, would have far-reaching implications for the UK’s devolved administrations and relations with the Republic of Ireland. These run deep into the constitutional marrow of the nations involved; so deep that it is difficult to see how repeal of the Act could take place without their consent. The government’s difficulties in relation to, especially, Scotland and Northern Ireland are significant but different and worth reviewing separately.

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Why is it important to Remember Srebrenica: some personal reflections?

Atrocities, Conflict, Eastern Europe

by Adam Boys, University of Edinburgh alumnus

In 1994 and early 1995, I was working for a small British charity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We, like the United Nations and many other agencies, had been trying for months to make our way through Eastern Bosnia to get food and medicine to the isolated enclave of Srebrenica. We all knew that many thousands of people had fled to the town from surrounding municipalities as a consequence of a brutal policy of “ethnic cleansing”.

The United Nations had a military presence in the town. NATO member states gathered intelligence on what was happening and the status of the enclave was consistently raised at the highest levels, by international peace envoys from the UN and the EU. » Read more

Human Rights Act Repeal and Devolution: Quick Points and Further Resources on Scotland and Northern Ireland

Constitutional Change, Devolution, Human rights, Human Rights Act, UK

Can the UK’s Human Rights Act be repealed? What would the process need? Is it even possible? What are the legal implications?

Christine Bell, Professor of Constitutional Law at Edinburgh Law School, Assistant Principal Global Justice and Director of the Global Justice Academy, offers this review of the current debate on repealing the Human Rights Act, and points readers to other available resources.

In the past few days repeal of the Human Rights Act, and in particular its devolution implications have attracted a lot of attention.  Today, a new report is launched from a legal expert seminar in April 2015, on the legal implications of repeal of the human rights act (see below).  The report provides the full chapter and verse, but here are a few quick points on the devolution implications, with further more detailed and reasoned resources below.

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Business and Human Rights: the story so far and what next?

business, Human rights, Labour rights, Law and Legal

This is a guest post by Sean Molloy, who is a Principal’s Development Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, where he is completing his PhD at the School of Law. Sean edits the Global Justice Academy newsletter, which you can subscribe to by clicking here.

In March of this year I attended a roundtable at Chatham House on the issue of business and human rights. Comprised of state officials, civil society organisations, academics, and corporate representatives, the focus of the event was on the extent to which (or not) a consensus is beginning to form on how to operationalise and implement the UNGP. In this post I wish to convey some of the discussions of that meeting in attempting to articulate the current position, the obstacles remaining and potential solutions going forward. Firstly, a little background is required.

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